1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for exchanging mail between users in a network game using a character name used by each user.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in order to use a mail address including an account that a user desires, it is necessary to obtain a mail address including the relevant account from an Internet service provider (hereinafter simply referred to as “provider”). If the account that the user desires was already obtained by another user, the user cannot obtain the mail address including the relevant account. In the case where the user has his/her heart set on obtaining the mail address including the desired account, the user must obtain the mail address from another provider.
A mail server of the provider obtains from a network mail having a destination that is a mail address provided by the provider and stores the mail in a mailbox. A mailbox that stores the mail obtained from the network is generally provided for each mail address. Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication H 5-344150 discloses a technique for storing mail of different destination addresses in the same mailbox provided for each user.
In recent years, network games using the Internet have been actively used. In general, a character name is individually assigned to the character that the user operates in the network game. There is also a network game in which the character name can be set by the user himself/herself.
In many cases, the user has strong feelings about the character name set by the user himself/herself. It can be considered that there are users, who desire to use the character names used in the network game as their mail account. In the game world, since each user recognizes the other user by the character name, it is convenient for users to use a mail address including the character name, which is used in the world by each user, as a mail account. It is also convenient for users to recognize the network game where the relevant character name is used in a mail address.
Although there are a large number of providers which provide network games, there is no one that provides a mail address including the character name operated by the user in the game to be related with the network game. Even if the mail address including the character name is obtained from the provider, if the address does not relate to the network game, it is difficult for users to recognize the relationship between the character name and the game.